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How cute [img]http://www.**********.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif[/img] . The only thing about wild snakes when you pick them up they release a musky smell [img]http://www.**********.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif[/img] . It is nasty smelling. [img]http://www.**********.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif[/img]
I would have imagine the mouse would have to be really small for a garter snake to eat one. I always feed my garter snake goldfish.

Well, the mother was very big and fat, and hanging around my beehives. Mice can sneak in and steal food from the bees during the winter, and there are always tons of them around the hives.
I let my son take it home for a few weeks, and it had about 20 babies. All but 9 were still born, the others were fed with worm the kids dig up in the garden. Some were released by the house, some were given away, but they kept this one, which like earthworms the best, and also feeder guppies.

Even though I have milksnakes, corns and kings, I have always wanted to try and collect as many different garter snakes as I could, in an economical way. I don't suppose anyone would be interested in swapping specimens of their local species for our plains and red-sided garters?
Garters in the wild eat more worms than mice. Mice are kind of a big food item and hard to overcome, because garters do not have poison or the ability to constrict. If they happen upon a nest of babies, then they will gorge themselves.
The benefit of feeding your pet garter pinky mice (or whatever size they can handle), is that mice are a complete food item: you do not need to sprinkle supplement vitamins on them. A steady diet of just worms can lead to calcium and other supplement defieciency that they would not get just being in the wild.
Cool snake, Tim, no doubt about it. And yes, lol, their best line of defense is musk, instead of biting.

Joe, sorry, I meant red-spotted the whole time (not much of a garter expert, im a milk/king guy). You are absolutely correct with mice as being a "whole" diet. Garters do perfer worms, fish, frogs, etc., but mice (like pinkies and fuzzies), are often eaten in captivity. I have read that some garters have an agent in thier saliva that can subdue some fish, etc. prey (much like that of a hog-nose snake, but hoggies admit a venom that is harmless to people (unless you are allergic) through a pair of rear-fangs).

Also, Joe, you are into milks/kings (anyother colubrids?). I am thinking of breeding Applegate Pyro's in the future. What snakes do you have now?